The music of Hawaii includes an array of traditional and popular styles, ranging from native Hawaiian folk music to modern rock and hip hop. Styles like slack-key guitar are well known worldwide, while Hawaiian-tinged music is a frequent part of Hollywood soundtracks. Hawaii also made a contribution to country music with the introduction of the steel guitar. In addition, the music which began to be played by Puerto Ricans in Hawaii in the early 1900s is called cachi cachi music, on the islands of Hawaii.
Keola Beamer is a Hawaiian slack-key guitar player, best known as the composer of "Honolulu City Lights" and an innovative musician who fused Hawaiian roots and contemporary music. Keola Beamer descends from one of Hawaii's most respected musical families.
Philip Kunia Pahinui, known as Gabby Pahinui, was a slack-key guitarist and singer of Hawaiian music.
Slack-key guitar is a fingerstyle genre of guitar music that originated in Hawaii. This style of guitar playing involves altering the standard tuning on a guitar from E-A-D-G-B-E, which has been used for centuries, so that strumming across the open strings will then sound a harmonious chord, typically an open major. This requires altering or "slacking" certain strings, which is the origin of the term "slack key". The style typically features an alternating-bass pattern, played by the thumb on the lower two or three strings of the guitar, while the melody is played by the fingers on the three or four highest strings. The are as many as fifty tunings that have been used in this style of playing, and tunings were once guarded fiercely and passed down as family secrets. In the early 20th century, the steel guitar and the ukulele gained wide popularity in America, but the slack-key style remained a folk tradition of family entertainment for Hawaiians until about the 1960s and 1970s during the second Hawaiian renaissance.
Ledward Kaapana is a Hawaiian musician, best known for playing in the slack key guitar style. In 2011, he received a National Heritage Fellowship, the United States government's highest honor in the folk and traditional arts. He also plays steel guitar, ukulele, autoharp, and bass guitar, and is a baritone and falsetto vocalist. He received Na Hoku Hanohano Awards from the Hawai'i Academy of Recording Arts (HARA), and has been nominated for Grammy Awards.
The Grammy Award for Best Hawaiian Music Album was an honor presented to recording artists from 2005 to 2011 for quality Hawaiian music albums. The Grammy Awards, an annual ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards, are presented by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to "honor artistic achievement, technical proficiency, and overall excellence in the recording industry, without regard to album sales or chart position".
George Otis Winston III was an American pianist who was an established contemporary instrumental music performer. Best known for his solo piano recordings, Winston released his first album in 1972, and came to prominence with his 1980 album Autumn, which was followed in 1982 by Winter into Spring and December. All three became platinum-selling albums, with December becoming a triple-platinum album. A total of 16 solo albums were released, accumulating over 15 million records sold, with the 1994 album Forest earning Winston a Grammy award for Best New Age Album. Winston received four other Grammy nominations, including one for Best Children's Music Album, performed with actress Meryl Streep, and another for Best Contemporary Instrumental Album for his interpretation of works by the rock band the Doors.
Dancing Cat Records is a record label founded in 1983 by pianist George Winston to publish both his music and music in the Hawaiian slack-key guitar style. Its mission later expanded to cover other Hawaiian musicians. Dancing Cat's albums were originally distributed by Windham Hill Records. Since Windham Hill's buyout by Sony Music Entertainment in 2008, the label receives distribution from RCA Victor, but is not owned by Windham Hill or Sony Music.
James West, also known as Jim "Kimo" West, is a Canadian guitarist best known for working with "Weird Al" Yankovic. He auditioned for Yankovic after being introduced by Steve Jay and the two have worked together ever since. West can be heard and seen on all of Yankovic's videos, albums, and concerts since 1983.
Dennis David Kahekilimamaoikalanikeha Kamakahi was a Hawaiian slack key guitarist, recording artist, music composer, and Christian minister. He was a three-time Grammy Award winner, and in 2009 he was inducted into the Hawaiian Music Hall of Fame.
Leonard Keala Kwan Sr (1931-2000) was one of the most influential Hawaiian slack-key guitarists to emerge in the period immediately preceding the Hawaiian Cultural Renaissance of the 1970s. He made the first LP of slack key instrumentals, co-wrote the second slack key instruction book, and composed a number of pieces that have become part of the standard repertory. Most players will include Kwan, along with Gabby Pahinui, Sonny Chillingworth, and Atta Isaacs, on a list of the most significant players of the older generation.
Elmer "Sonny" Lim is a Hawaiian musician and slack key guitar player from Waimea (Kamuela) on the Big Island of Hawaii. Sonny is part of the musical Lim Family of North Kohala.
Jeff Peterson is an American slack key guitar player from Maui, Hawaii. The son of a paniolo at Haleakala Ranch, Peterson was exposed to the sounds of slack key at an early age.
Owana Kaʻōhelelani Mahealani-Rose Salazar is an American musician and activist. She is thought to be the only female steel guitar player in Hawaiʻi trained by Jerry Byrd.
The Descendants is a 2011 American comedy-drama film directed by Alexander Payne. The screenplay by Payne, Nat Faxon, and Jim Rash is based on the 2007 novel of the same name by Kaui Hart Hemmings. The film stars George Clooney in the main role, Shailene Woodley, Amara Miller in her film debut, Beau Bridges, Judy Greer, Matthew Lillard, and Robert Forster, and was released by Fox Searchlight Pictures in the United States on November 18, 2011, after premiering at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival on September 10, 2011.
Makana, born Matthew Swalinkavich, is a slack-key guitar player, singer, and composer.
The Guitar and Lute Workshop (GLW) was a manufacturer of custom guitars, ukuleles, and period stringed instruments based in Honolulu, Hawaii between 1970 and 1976. The workshop was known primarily for the talented luthiers employed in either construction of guitars, or the musicians that taught at the workshop or that used guitars made at the workshop. Additionally, an independent piano restoration and tuning business operated above the workshop floor and studios for at least two years. The GLW was notable as a nexus of activity supporting native Hawaiian musical cultural discovery during the Second Hawaiian Renaissance of the 1970s, with key Hawaiian musicians such as Keola Beamer and Kapono Beamer gaining starts in their careers at the GLW, as well as musical instrument restoration for instruments of Hawaiian royalty, now curated by ʻIolani Palace. Additionally, the GLW's focus on traditional period stringed instruments was, in part, responsible for the resurgent interest in the viol and traditional luthierie methods within the western United States in the early 1970s.
Patrick Landeza is a contemporary Hawaiian slack key guitarist. He is the first mainland-born Hawaiian to win a Nā Hōkū Hanohano music award. He was born in Berkeley, California on June 23, 1972.
Cyril Pahinui was a slack-key guitarist and singer of Hawaiian music.
Soul Surfer (Music From The Motion Picture) is the soundtrack to the 2011 film Soul Surfer, released on April 5, 2011 by Rhino Records. The album featured numerous songs performed by artists James “Bla” Pahinui, Michael Franti & Spearhead, Britt Nicole, Brian Setzer and Two Door Cinema Club.
